


unbearable loss

by iron_spider



Series: iron dad bingo [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Trailer, Endgame Speculation, F/M, Gen, Hurt Tony Stark, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Spoilers, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-13 16:17:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18472534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iron_spider/pseuds/iron_spider
Summary: “Peter...he was so afraid, Pep,” Tony says, his voice breaking. “He...he just lunged for me, he was so afraid, he wanted—he needed someone to be there for him. And I tried, I tried—I held him, I told him he was alright, which was a—goddamn lie, and the only fucking thing that came out of my mouth. The last thing I said to him.” He shakes his head, swallowing hard. “The last thing I said to him was a lie.”“You can’t blame yourself,” Pepper says, quietly.“I do,” Tony says. “He trusted me. That kid trusted me, and I failed him everypossibleway I could have. I couldn’t save him, I couldn’t—he died in my arms and I couldn’t do one single solitary thing about it. And I couldn’t—me, the human fucking chatterbox—I just stared at him. He was dying, turning to fucking dust and apologizingto meand I just stared at him, like a moron.”





	unbearable loss

**Author's Note:**

> For Iron Dad bingo, crossing off "Endgame speculation"! There is one line in here that is a confirmed spoiler from the Omaze contest winner and his reports. All the rest is speculation.

Tony lays in the medbay bed and listens to the beat of his own heart. Everything seems too bright, too comfortable, almost like he deserved the darkness and pain he’d been enduring while floating aimlessly in the Benatar. It feels strange, not to see Nebula when he looks to his left, the endless depths of space to his right. Quill’s music drowning out the pain in his head.

But all the ghosts are here too. He brought them with him.

His whole body throbs and it was a shock when he finally saw his own reflection—sallow skin, fifteen pounds lighter at least, sunken-in eyes. He looks like a fucking corpse. He feels like one too, all of it weighing on him, coursing through his blood like a toxin. Even here, back here, his home, he feels like he’s wasting away. He thought it’d be better here—not fixed—but better. But instead, everything feels wrong, off. The nightmare feels real. 

It is real. It all happened. He’s back on Earth and everything stayed broken. He didn’t wake up in a cold sweat with Pepper beside him, about ten messages from the kid buzzing on his phone about his trip to MoMa.

No, they’re living inside this now. There’s no waking up from it. It’s real. It fucking happened.

His phone is on the bedside table, and he reaches over with a tentative hand and takes it. He opens it up, his heart in his throat, and the third goddamn photo on the camera roll is a picture of him and Peter. Taken three fucking days before that ship came down to Earth and changed everything. 

A selfie Peter took of the two of them in the lab, right after he grabbed Tony’s thumb and made him unlock his phone. Peter’s smile is wide, shining. He’s got goggles on his forehead. Tony has one eyebrow raised, and he isn’t smiling. He doesn’t look nearly happy enough, considering he was in one of his last days with the person beside him.

He puts his phone back down, and his hand trembles.

He sees Pepper walking down the hall through the glass windows, staring down at her feet as she goes, brushing her hair out of her face. He tries to focus on her, tries to cut it all out, all the rest of it. She’s alive, she’s here, she’s solid. But whenever he looks at her he just imagines her face crumpling too. He failed with Peter. He can’t protect what he has left, not as long as Thanos is still out there. 

Pepper pushes inside the room, her eyes darting up to find him as the door closes behind her. She chews on her lower lip and retakes the chair on his right side. He only woke up an hour ago, but he hasn’t said much, to her or to anybody. Not for a lack of trying on their part.

“They’re, uh, anxious to hear how you’re doing,” she says, seeking out his hand with her own. She threads their fingers together, pulls herself closer. “Carol, uh—”

“She’s great,” Tony croaks, his own voice still sounding strange and out of place here. “Real lifesaver.” In every sense of the word. She’s the reason he’s here.

“Thank God,” Pepper says. She stares at him for a long moment, and sometimes it feels like she’s searching for something in him that isn’t there anymore. There’s a dark pit inside of him, and it’s building up walls. “They, uh—it kind of seems like—it seems like they might be planning something. Kind of, uh—a potential—retaliation, maybe, or—an attempt to...fix what happened, what….what he did.”

Tony’s eyelid twitches a little bit. There’s a torrent in his head. “I couldn’t go with them,” he says. “I’m...I’m out of commission.”

“I wouldn’t want you to,” Pepper says, and she squeezes his hand. 

Even though he’s laid up in the med bay, this is his home. He’s here with creature comforts. He’s got his cell phone, the TV has been playing _I love Lucy_ since he woke up. Bruce got him into his favorite sweatpants. He’s got a heating blanket, he can shower if he fucking wants to. Peter doesn’t have any of that. Peter is dust in the wind. A goddamn Kansas song will forever send Tony into waves of panic and horror.

He hasn’t spoken to Pepper about him yet. He cried about him to Nebula, who didn’t know him. Nebula, who’d suffered far too much at the hands of that purple asshole. Nebula, who’d lost family too. But Pepper, the love of his life, the one person who knows all his secrets—she hasn’t heard the details yet. He knows he needs to tell her before it becomes a sacred thing in his head, something he wraps up in delicate softness and shuts away. All he’s said so far, on planet Earth, is _I lost the kid._

_The_ kid. 

His throat already feels tight just thinking about it. He meets her eyes again and he can tell what he looks like by the way her face changes. He’s never seen so much sadness there.

“I don’t feel….like I’m still alive,” he says. “This world, this….this is a mistake.” He looks around. He can hear Peter’s voice everywhere, can see whispers of him turning corners, looking out of the blinds, pointing the remote at the TV. The kid is everywhere. “I can’t move on. I can’t. I get what they’re doing, I get it, I want—I want to do it, because as long as he’s out there—everything we have left is in danger. He can do anything. He is capable—of anything. He’s a lunatic, he’s—he—” He realizes he’s gasping, tears clouding his vision.

“Breathe, baby,” Pepper whispers. She brings his hand up to her lips, pressing a kiss to his knuckles.

He doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve her love, he doesn’t deserve to still be here.

“Peter...he was so afraid, Pep,” Tony says, his voice breaking. “He...he just lunged for me, he was so afraid, he wanted—he needed someone to be there for him. And I tried, I tried—I held him, I told him he was alright, which was a—goddamn lie, and the only fucking thing that came out of my mouth. The last thing I said to him.” He shakes his head, swallowing hard. “The last thing I said to him was a lie.”

“You can’t blame yourself,” Pepper says, quietly. 

“I do,” Tony says. “He trusted me. That kid trusted me, and I failed him every _possible_ way I could have. I couldn’t save him, I couldn’t—he died in my arms and I couldn’t do one single solitary thing about it. And I couldn’t—me, the human fucking chatterbox—I just stared at him. He was dying, turning to fucking dust and apologizing _to me_ and I just stared at him, like a moron.” 

“Tony—”

“I loved that kid,” Tony says, in a hush, so softly he barely hears himself. He shakes his head, pressing his lips together in a thin line. A few tears race down his cheeks, reminiscent of those he shed on Titan, sitting there cradling Peter’s ashes in his hands. “I loved him and he didn’t know. I never told him.”

“He knew,” Pepper says. “Peter was smart. He was so smart, he knew.”

“He deserved to hear me say it,” Tony says, sucking in a panicked breath. In dark moments it feels like he’s back on that ship, struggling to breathe, struggling to live. He doesn’t know what’s worse—what he went though, lost in space, or this warped husk of his old life. “God, I was such an asshole to him. I was such an asshole.”

“You weren’t,” Pepper says. “No. You made him so happy, you gave him everything you could—I remember that first movie night, when we all watched _Rocky_ —”

“—and then I stayed up til four in the morning finishing them all with him—”

“—after everybody else went to sleep—”

“Yeah,” Tony says, bitterness in his voice. “Yeah. And now he’s gone. Now he’s—”

God, he can’t say the word dead. He can barely think it without feeling like passing out, because someone so full of life can’t be dead. Someone who had so much ahead of him can’t be dead. Someone so kind, so vibrant, so _loved_ —he can’t, he can’t, he can’t be. There can’t be an empty grave that belongs to him. There can’t be a tombstone with his name on it. Not him. _Not him._

“I can’t let him go, Pep,” Tony says. “I can’t. I can’t accept this.”

Pepper blows out a breath. She can see him chipping away, and he can feel it too.

Tony covers his face with his free hand, tries to stop more tears from coming, but they fall anyhow, followed by silent sobs that wrack his whole body. Pepper clicks her tongue and lets go of his hand, climbing into the bed beside him and wrapping him up in her arms.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I know you saw him like a son. He was so good, he was such a little sweetheart.”

Tony cries harder, his head pounding with pain and unbearable loss.

“It’s not your fault,” Pepper whispers, kissing his cheek. “He’d never blame you. Ever.”

Peter wouldn’t blame Tony for a fire he saw Tony set. That’s how goddamn much he cared. He was the best. Tony hates the past tense. He hates the memories, the curtain slowly setting on the time that Peter Parker was in his life. He has to tell May, and he knows that might kill him.

“I have to get him back, Pepper,” Tony cries. “I have to get him back.”


End file.
